Fantastic Wizards and Where to Find Them
by ahalfpasttea
Summary: In kitchens, foyers, and alleys. Related one shots following the minutiae of Hermione Granger's post-war life.


Note: I've been working on a rather lengthy piece that begins roughly six months after the Battle of Hogwarts and follows Hermione and co. through the beginning of their lives free of Voldemort. It's a rather bumpy road, marked with more than several interpersonal AND interpersonal struggles, not to mention that it completely disregards the epilogue. Since it's following Hermione, the underlying plot deals heavily with her entry into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, the frustrations she undergoes in trying to make a difference, her relationships with Harry, Ron, and many of the other survivors of the war. The pairing in the piece is Percy/Hermione, although it takes some time to get there. No Weasley bashing occurs, despite the conflicts such a large family can bring with it. This is a series of extra but unnecessary scenes from that piece, largely involving Hermione's interactions with others (mostly Percy). Be warned, it's full of minutiae and not necessarily in order.

I'll start posting the larger work soon, with the understanding that it's odd to post outcast scenes before the actual story.

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 **Fantastic Wizards and Where to Find Them**

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 _"The Augurey has a distinctive low and throbbing cry, which was once believed to foretell death. Wizards avoided Augurey nests for fear of hearing that heart-rending sound, and more than one wizard is believed to have suffered a heart attack on passing a thicket and hearing an unseen Augurey wail. Patient research eventually revealed, however, that the Augurey merely sings at the approach of rain."_ \- Newt Scamandar, **Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them** , ed. 52.

Every Wednesday, from precisely 9:12 in the morning to 3:15 in the afternoon, Hermione has the Burrow entirely to herself. In these blessedly silent six hours and three minutes, she is able to revise her N.E.W.T.S. with no interruptions.

When this arrangement had been established in early August - at which point Molly had volunteered to assist Madam Pomfrey in attending to the inevitable wounds of those rebuilding the walls of Hogwarts - Hermione had been ashamed to realize that what she'd been feeling was the first sign of joy since the war had concluded. Before this, the five Weasley children interred within the Burrow had been given designated chore lists to complete under their mother's stern eye, while Hermione and Harry insisted on helping them to earn their keep. The busy work had been distracting and pivotal in taming her restlessness, but it would only have ever remained a distraction. Now, the others took this time to piece together what would become their adult lives, and Hermione took Wednesdays to herself.

In early autumn, she'd enjoyed sitting out in the back garden with her books and muggle writing pad, taking careful notes from texts she would have been assigned in her seventh year, had she been present for it. Now, as November was nearing its close, she spread her materials across the table in the kitchen. And while the window to the garden remained propped open, a heating charm was meticulously cast every hour, precisely to the minute. She liked the smell of the crisp chill more than she liked sitting in it.

When she'd woken in the morning to sounds of Molly and Arthur preparing for the day (George had moved out at the end of August, while Harry, Ron, and Ginny had begun a more subtle transition to Grimmauld Place - these absences made the mornings quieter), Hermione had silently determined the structure of her day. Between putting on tea for breakfast and checking to see if any owls had come in for her, she had decided to designate three two hour blocs to the subjects of transfigurations, charms, and ancient ruins. These she could revise on her own time, without the assistance of Hogwarts faculty (and with little threat of blowing up Molly's kitchen). And these were the _two_ hours she could spend on each this week, because her post-war life required her attention remain forever elsewhere, even thought it was still important she do well in her tests. Hogwarts ex-resident bookworm could not set a dangerously lazy precedent for the new era's school children.

For the first time since this routine had been established; her studying was interrupted. Not once but thrice.

First, the kitchen hearth came alight with green flame, which took the shape of Harry's face. He sheepishly apologized for distracting her, but needed her to confirm that she was, _absolutely_ , coming to dinner at Grimmauld place in the evening. _Of course she was_ , Hermione responded. _Ginny wanted to know if she had a preference between muggle take out or Kreacher's stuffed turkey._ She assured him that although Kreacher's stuffed turkey was truly divine, _Molly had roasted Cornish hen the night before._

Transfigurations lost an hour of her attention, as she and he put together a schedule of the days that she could help the new trio make the townhouse more inhabitable.

As she was attempting to trace a family of ancient ruins to their source, the second distraction came by way of a terrible cry from just outside the kitchen window. When, and only when, she was absolutely certain that her thoughts could not grow any more troubled (without inviting a Dementor to give it a try), she stood to take a peek out at the Weasley's newest family addition. The downside of the Weasley children moving on and moving out and Molly's days spent out of the house was that the gardening was sacrificed. Some of the bushes had grown a little wild, creating the perfect habitat for what awaited her gaze outside. The Augurey, with its vulture-like ugliness, looked up at her from the thicket under the window. It continued to cry in earnest, despite her pointed glare, while shaking its beak up at the cloudy sky.

"Who knew birds could sing in minor key,'' she thought aloud.

"It sounds like there will be rain," the person who owned the voice that didn't respond to her rhetorical question was her third distraction.

Hermione nudged on the window until it was snuggly shut before turning to greet her company, "Hello, Percy."

He was removing his cloak and scarf at this point, choosing to hang them by the fire rather than charming them dry. Hermione knew little of the third oldest Weasley son, except that she had never seen him preform magic in front of her in all the time that she had lived in the Burrow, and that he had stopped being scarce only long enough to stand as her only ally when she asked Molly stop making dreamless sleep and pepper-up potions for the household three months before. Many days she regretted that Molly had come to her senses and agreed, but that was the _very_ reason she had asked in the first place.

"Hello, Hermione," he parroted back, not entirely committed to conversation but also not unkindly.

"I didn't hear you come through the floo," she confessed, already arranging her materials so that she could shrink them and place them in her bag. It was likely that he had come home for lunch, and she would only be in the way.

"That is because," he said with punctuated words and a trace of a smile, "I took the Knight Bus.''

"That's still running?''

"As a matter of fact, the Ministry began subsidizing its routes again just last week. A reasonable case was made that, with the number of requests to have floo networks disconnected and anti-apparation wards placed at non-essential residential homes, we could make a generous return by taxing public transportation just slightly more than we help pay for its operation.''

"That sounds," oh bother, she lost the word for it...

"Dull," Percy provided, stripping his gloves from his hands so that he could begin preparing his lunch, "Well, yes. That's because it is.''

Hermione watched him cut two slices from a loaf of bread, and frowned, "I was going to be more supportive than that.''

"Please don't,'' it wasn't a reprimand so much as it was a request, "I'm sure I'll eventually grow to like working with transportation. I hear people who aren't given any choice with their career find happiness with that. However, it will do me some good to be reminded along the way that floo networks and bus routes are not what you turn to when you want to have an engaging conversation.''

"I doubt Celtic ruins are considered engaging to anyone either," she held up her shrunken notes on the very subject in a show of solidarity, "but I don't think I'll be asking anyone to remind me that they aren't.''

Percy looked contemplative for a moment, putting two-and-two together. An expression of guilt took over his features. It was as if he had just realized what the young woman who inhabited the room across the hall from his was doing when everyone else was away, "If you'd like, you can have my old ruins notes. I have them bound for each year, the same with transfigurations, arithmancy, charms, and care for magical creatures.''

"Really?'' the thought of someone sharing _their_ notes with _her_ was so foreign to her, that Hermione almost didn't believe it. Except she did, because this was Percy, and she remembered seeing him in the library often when their attendance at Hogwarts overlapped.

Taking note of her growing excitement, Percy stopped cutting into the wheel of Derby and gave a quizzical smile, "I'm realizing now that I should have saved them as a Christmas gift, but yes. I'm being quite serious. I have the distinct feeling that they may be more useful to you than any of the material that has come out of Hogwarts in the last year.''

When it began to rain, the droplets were frozen and the Augurey made a ruckus as it flew from its thicket. When Percy offered to make her a sandwich, Hermione accepted it - as well as the distraction - and asked him if his notes come with an index.

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Endnote: The excerpt at the beginning of this chapter was written by JK Rowling. I take no credit for it, just enjoy it enough to quote it.


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